One by one over the past decade the reasons computers are not the main tool of school students have disappeared. At first the schools were not wired: billions were spent to wire the schools and mostly the connectivity is used to keep records in the school offices. More computers were required: they were acquired but put into “labs” instead of given to individual students as was done for their parents at their jobs (learning is a student’s job, right?). Now the kids mostly have their own computers in their pockets: they are told they will cheat if they use them, and are forbidden. They say the little computers don’t access the Internet anyway; which is not completely true now and about to become wrong.
The real reason — and the reason that has been in effect all along — that computers are not the main tool of school students is that educators do not make or let that happen. Why not? For crying out loud why not? How much is learned in classrooms will continue to deteriorate — at tragic cost to the young generations — until we answer that question and educators embrace the virtual connectivity that has replaced analog information.
So am I being negative? I am just mystified. Why don’t educators press the mobile industry for learning features on handsets? Why don’t school systems demand their own wireless networks that interconnect with their students’ mobile phones? Why don’t teachers solicit content packages for the students’ mobiles from scientific laboratories, libraries and museums? Why don’t the kids have ways to drill for tests using their mobile devices so they can study on the bus?
Why isn’t the next killer app mobile learning? Hey, maybe it is. Let’s make that happen!
